


Two New Stories

by SevenBetter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And that's all for story 2, And there you have the spoiler-free tags for story 1, Both would have eventual smut, But of course our girl Rey just wants to stay a lone wolf, Chance at redemption for all involved, F/M, Help me decide, I beg of you, It's the only way to stay alive, Pack Building, Tattooed Ben, The world has split into countless local factions, an author in turmoil, we all know Maz would make amazing baked goods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:08:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22638181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenBetter/pseuds/SevenBetter
Summary: Story 1: Ben's been running this support group for years. It was a term of his probation. He's still not sure why they picked him, he's hardly social. He never was, yet the time inside certainly worsened it. But Ben will quietly do whatever he must, even this, to become a truly free man again.He's months away from it all being over, when a slight, silent woman slips through the door and upends everything he's come to expect from life.-------------------------------------------------------Story 2: Humanity has disintegrated. An illness, poorly understood and poorly controlled, swept the earth like a miasma carried on the wind. Most of the Betas went first, but it killed Alphas and Omegas too; slower, more agonizingly. Society devolves into packs, and all the animalistic behavior we spent millennia ignoring is suddenly reborn, providing what seems to be the only chance at survival. No longer are the dictations of our most basic biology hidden.Now, a group headed by one leading Alpha and the territory that group holds may be the only thing that stands between you and death. Unless you're Rey, of course.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 56
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends. 
> 
> I'll cut right to the chase here: I have two ideas for new stories I want to write. I have written bits and pieces for both. I cannot, under duress, time pressure, physical torture, or any other form of threat, decide which one to keep writing. They are foes perfectly matched and I am a hapless referee.
> 
> All of this is to say: I am enlisting your help to decide. Please read both of the excerpts below, and then voice your opinion on which one should become my next fic once Heart of Hate is complete. 
> 
> Each will probably be the length of my story Hunger Unbeknownst to Us (7 chapters, but long installments). 
> 
> Please clamor as loudly as you would like in the comments for the story of your choice.

Story 1: _Love me for the House and Grave, and for Something Higher_

Ben has to jiggle the doorknob four times before it finally un-sticks.

By that point, he's already shoving his shoulder against the wood as he does so, and when the door finally bursts open, the weight of his body causes it to go crashing back again the wall with a loud bang he hopes no one inside the rectory could hear. 

There aren't many places that will host them: he's not keen on compromising one of the only places that will.

He makes his way down to the damp, gray basement and goes through the motions as easily as breathing, utterly without notice. He makes and sets out the coffee in a white insulated carafe, he lays out the box of cookies that's always left on the edge of the steel table in the kitchen.

He places the chairs in a circle, ten, just like always. 

And then he waits. He's waited here every Thursday evening, for an hour and a half, rain, sun, or snow, for the past three years.

No one has ever showed up. And that's suited him just fine.

If it weren't a term of his release, he would never even be in this part of town. It's almost suburban, populated with beige houses and chain stores in strip malls. Roads with no sidewalks and a five mile radius with more parks than bars.

He lives downtown, where the constant wail of traffic plays soundtrack to his sleep, where people keep their heads down and their minds on their own business, where anonymity is all but a guarantee, so long as you don't make a scene. 

Instead here he feels scrutinized, each time he gets out of the officer's unmarked car in the parking lot, each time it takes him a moment longer to get that damn doorknob loose and someone happens to walk by. When that happens, Ben feels the need to defend himself, to explain he was given the keys by the parish priest, to hide his tattooed wrists behind his back and hunch his shoulders to appear less threatening. 

He doesn't owe anyone anything. He doesn't owe anyone a smaller or less scary version of himself. But sometimes, in order to be left alone, you have to be seen as the person someone else wants to believe you are.

Ben's known that his entire life.

It's these thoughts he's lost in, staring at the wall where a dusty cartoon poster of Jesus hangs, when he hears someone delicately clear their throat.

Ben nearly jumps out of his skin, "Fuckin hell, you sneak in here or something?" He says reflexively.

He turns to see a thin brunette, shoulders tense and squared with muscle, her hair pulled back into a sloppy bun.

"You certain you should be speaking that way in a church, mate?" Her voice is as thin as she is, hard, and rounded by a British accent.

"I'm not here for God."

"No," she concurs, fiddling with a loose thread on her sweater, "no I figured you're not."

Ben clenches his jaw. "Why'd you figure that?"

She looks back up at him, narrows her eyes, blinks. "Way of the Light church? Thursdays? Seven p.m.?"

He blinks back. "You're here for the group?"

She shifts her weight. "Yep."

"You. Are here. For the group?"

His tone drips incredulity.

She sucks her teeth. "What, I don't look like someone who would belong here?"

He considers rushing to put together a defense for a moment, but at the last second, decides on honesty. "No. You don't." 

He doesn't know what he said, but her face flickers with hurt for a second, and Ben really, really regrets his honesty.

"Well," she says, so softly he almost can't hear her over the drone of the air conditioning, "not belonging is what got me in this situation in the first place. I'll go."

He should be fine with it. He should breathe a sigh of relief and go back to his hard-won ninety minutes of solitude. He should remind himself that the pain in her big hazel eyes isn't for him to resolve, that it isn't his business to ponder what her smile looks like, and he shouldn't be wondering about her story.

But instead, he calls, "Wait."

He hears her steps come to a stop in the hallway, but she doesn't return. He goes to meet her, turning the corner, only to stop short when he realizes how little distance she covered. She's barely beyond the doorway, and now, Ben's standing too close. They both take hasty steps backwards before he speaks.

"Of course you belong here. That's the whole idea. Now that we're back in the world, none of us have anywhere to belong, which is why this whole thing was set up in the first place."

She casts an angry glance at him, still unforgiving, but he takes another step back, pointing into the meeting room. "Come back in, just for a little bit."

Those big eyes dart around the hallway and then after a moment, she shakes her head.

"Come on," he says, and suddenly he realizes he can't do another six months of this alone. He wants someone to be there with him. 

Not _someone_. Her. This person about whom he knows nothing, whose presence he has known for barely a minute.

"We don't even have to talk. Just...hang out here for a little while. Maz, she's a member of the church, she makes the cookies in there. They're amazing."

A faint grin creeps onto her face, and Ben can see the whisper of a dimple. He wants to see it deep and creased when that grin is full blown.

"Fine," she mutters, and follows him back in. She piles four cookies onto a red paper napkin and takes a seat across the circle.

She seems to take his offer on its face. They don't speak. He might be willing to, if she started the conversation, but all the canned lines he learned during training seem ill-fitting, in this moment. 

When the clock hits eight-thirty, she wishes him a good night, flips her gray hood up, and takes long strides out of the room.

She crosses his mind all week, when he sees a woman on the subway with the exact same shade of brown hair, when he spots a package of red napkins at the market, when he pulls his own gray hoodie out from the laundromat dryer. Every time he feels a twinge, because he's sure he'll never see her again. 

The next Thursday, he leaves the basement briefly to take a call from his boss, and when he comes back, there she is. In the same seat, another napkin piled high with Maz's banana bread this time. 

He sits. Around a mouthful of food, and with crumbs on her fingertips, she goes right for the million dollar question.

"So why were you on death row?"

Despite the fact that he's been out for years, despite the fact that he knows he's never going back, the two tiny words still manage to make Ben's heart race and his palms sweat. 

He swallows it all down. "I killed my dad." He sees a flicker of something, maybe shock, in her eyes. He isn't finished. "And then I murdered the man who made me kill him."

After a moment, she nods. It's hard for Ben to remind himself, but this probably isn't the first time she's heard a story like this.

"You?" He inquires.

"I sorta killed my father too. My foster father." Her words from last week come back to him. _Not belonging is what got me here in the first place._ He nods like she did. 

When his eyes rise to hers, its with the sudden realization of equality between them. It was implied, before, but now it hangs heavy and obvious in the air.

The conversation ends there. The remaining forty minutes: silent. Ben watches through one of the long, skinny basement windows as she leaves, departing through the ground level side door, and before she can turn to the street, she runs a fingertip along the edge of the taped-up flyer.

_PEER TO PEER SUPPORT: FORMER LIFETIME INCARCERATION_

_For more information, call the number below to reach Poe Dameron of the Chandrila District Attorney's office._

Ben wonders, if he were to wheedle and buy Poe some of that Swiss chocolate he likes, if he could get her name.

He may have taken the lives of two men and spend a decade believing he would die for it, but that doesn't mean he's not too scared to ask an angry, pretty woman for her name. 


	2. Chapter 2

Story 2: _Everywhere but Beside You_

Rey meets him in the back of the mess hall, as requested.

This must have once been a private banquet room, with its lone dining table, stretching down the middle of the space. There are drab brown velvet drapes hanging on sandy walls, and a passable mural of a Mediterranean beach and an olive grove. 

He stands out even more against all that beige, dark and hulking. Half his hair is pulled back, tied in a knot with a strip of gray fabric. His black shirt has long since had the sleeves torn off. He looks just like he did the first day she was here.

The only difference is that back then, he looked at her with bewilderment and suspicion.

Now, his gaze is so nakedly desirous and determined Rey can scarcely believe only two months have passed. 

He's sitting at the head of the table, directly in front of that mural, and he doesn't react as she walks in. She has no doubt he could scent her approaching from the moment she left her cabin.

God knows she could smell _him_ from that distance.

"Thanks for coming." He says softly, like she's inches from him rather than at the opposite end of the room. 

"Thanks for asking, instead of having me drugged and brought here against my will."

"What can I say?" He shrugs. "I know now that you're not a threat." 

She stares at him for a long moment, "If not that, then what am I?"

His icy, impenetrable mein falters for a moment, and she sees his face twitch. He can't quite put the mask back on all the way, and he looks a little vulnerable now. "An asset, maybe?"

She frowns, and doesn't need to verbalize her question.

"That's what I asked you here to talk about." He kicks out the chair on his right, directly next to him, and she lets her eyes linger on it for a moment.

Then, very deliberately, she reaches for the chair closest to her, all the way at the other end from him. 

His face darkens a bit at her defiance, but he recovers quickly and leans back in his seat, relaxed, like she's seen him in every other negotiation.

"How might I be an asset to this place?" 

He doesn't say anything for a long moment, but doesn't seem to be struggling for an answer. 

He looks intense, searching, but just...stares. Then, finally, in that confident, hard voice he mutters, "By becoming my Omega." 

She nods, and tries to hide the intake of breath she can't control. It's the proposition she anticipated, but it doesn't make it any less arousing, to hear him utter that word. 

That word she has never, ever wanted another Alpha to call her. And yet from him, it doesn't feel like a put down, or an admonition. It doesn't make her feel sick or scared or angry.

It makes her feel hallowed. Desired. Like she's the subject of awe and obsession.

Like she's special, in a way she never once felt special, before the world ended. 

Rey finally feels worthy, and all it took was the slow, agonizing death of humanity.

She swallows her feelings down and stays petulant. "Why should I?"

He opens his mouth, then stops, eyes drifting to some unknown spot behind her.

She grins to herself, and tries to stifle it. She's thrown him for a loop, broken that layer of calm control he carries.

He leans forward, hunched a little, and lays open palms against the table, moving one index finger across the wood grain.

"I uh," he begins, his rehearsed plan for this conversation no longer sufficient. "I think it would be...in your best interest, to do so."

"How so?"

He leans forward even more, as though closing a fraction of the distance between them will sway her.

"You're an unclaimed, rogue Omega in an incredibly dangerous landscape. You survived this long on your own, but something was bound to happen." She parts her lips to retort but he levels her with a stronger gaze, and the words die on her tongue. "I'm an unclaimed Alpha. My leadership skills and decisions will always be colored by the idea that I'm a reckless, bloodthirsty monster. Every pack left in this state will respect me more once I'm mated. And you," his meandering eyes snap back to her, "after a lifetime of being powerless, this is your chance for agency. Your chance to gain control, to help shape the future of this pack."

"You'd give me that power?"

He clenches his jaw. "My Omega will never just be my bedroom toy," he mutters, utterly vehement. "She will be a part of every choice I make as leader, and she will be respected for it." 

Rey's almost as intoxicated by that promise as she is by the way he smells. 

He keeps talking.

"You've already proven your value here. Solving problems, lending knowledge and skills we didn't have before you." He swallows, and his eyes go a little soft. "You've made people feel like they belong here, in a way I never could." She wants to smile and preen at his praise, but she stifles it. She is determined he will continue to take her seriously.

He glances down at the table, finger digging into the pattern of the wood a little harder. "And then there's the fact that we both want each other."

His directness snatches the breath from her lungs. 

"Do we?" She nearly whispers, and now she's just being obstinate on purpose, but it's worth it, for the spark of annoyed frustration it lights in his eyes. 

"Yes." He insists gently, shifting in his seat, "Yes, unless I am far stupider than I have always thought myself to be." She lets out a small half-laugh at his self-deprecation, and his shoulders relax a little. "I've...seen the way you react to my scent. And I think my own reaction to your scent is pretty obvious."

A dozen things flash across Rey's mind. His pupils widening when he first caught her smell. Realizing she could pick up his scent even through a driving rainstorm. The relentless sensitivity of her glands since she came here. His forearm pressed to Hux's throat in warning. Waking up to thoughts of his body lying on top of hers, feeling hollow when she realized he wasn't there. His hand twitching towards her hip as he walked alongside her. 

"We would form a good bond, Rey. You know I'd be loyal. And I think you'd be content, with me."

He leans back in his chair, and when he crosses his arms, Rey watches the way it makes his biceps bulge. 

_Good Alpha. Strong Alpha. Strong enough to keep you safe, strong enough to hold you still long enough to let go of your defenses, for a half a second._

She shivers, and shakes it off. 

"And," he continues, biting his lower lip, and _god, his teeth, that mouth..._

Nope, Rey absolutely cannot think about biting right now, about where he could bite her, not while she's trying to stay cool and removed.

"I know you've been given a similar offer. By Hux." He practically spits the man's name, and Rey nods once. "And I'm not saying he couldn't protect you just as well as I could, or he couldn't give you what you need, or that living with his pack would be in any way inferior to living with mine, but..."

"But it would," she states plainly, and Kylo blinks for a moment. 

"It would?"

"It would." She repeats.

For a moment, she debates resisting him for longer. Holding on to her independence as long as she possibly can. After all, some days she still considers leaving this place. But some part of her knows he's right. Things are only going to get worse out there.

And maybe, just maybe, after more than half a decade, she's getting tired of being utterly alone. 

"Living with his pack would be inferior to yours. Because the people allied to him are motivated by fear, not trust. Therefore he wouldn't be able to protect me as well. And I..." she takes a sharp breath, because even the thought of Kylo taking care of her is enough to make her glands itch and tingle, "I don't believe he would be able to take care of me. Not as well as you could."

"Why not?" He murmurs almost immediately, and Rey looks up from picking at her leather arm band to find his eyes riveted onto her.

She opens her mouth for a moment, then closes it, shaking her head. "I...couldn't even begin to explain why."

"Try."

"What?"

"Try to explain," he insists.

She swallows hard, circling her own wrist with her opposite hand. "He isn't as, strong as you. Mentally or socially or physically. The things he did while I was with his pack, the displays he made for my attention, they didn't make me feel...valued, the way I think I need. When he touched me it didn't make me feel safe. Not like when you..." she trails off, unable to say it, and gestures faintly to her neck. _Not like when you licked my gland, and soothed my panic in three seconds flat._ Kylo nods, so clearly he must remember.

"And-" she pauses, taking a breath, but his eyes are so compelling, without a word being spoken, so she's driven to say it, "and his scent doesn't make me feel like..."

She trails off, unable to describe it. Kylo isn't satisfied, clearly, because he stands up from the table, pressing both hands against the flat surface as though trying to ground himself, and growls, "What? My scent makes you feel like what?"

Uttering those words must cause his arousal to grow, because the next thing she knows, his scent doubles, taking over the room, invading every part of her as she huffs in huge lungfuls of him, unable to help herself. 

Like fresh coffee, and cedar wood smoke, and clean cotton, and golden butterscotch candy. An amalgam of everything she loved most in life, before all this.

"Like..." she whispers, and he leans even closer, desperate to hear, "like I would die, if I went without it for too long."

His hand drifts forward across the table.

She realizes, after a few seconds, he's reaching for her.

"The only thing I care about is survival, and," she takes a deep breath, she shifts in her chair, heart pounding at their proximity, at the fact that they're alone, at the continuous reminder of just how big his body is, "I think I might need you to survive."

His breathing accelerates."I know I need you to survive."

She remembers when he got angry in the courtyard, when she curled her hand around the back of his neck, just grazing his mating gland. He calmed instantly. He was able to avoid a threat to his life. She shivers.

"How do you know that?" She grits out, barely able to form the words. Her scent must be spiking hard, judging by how his nostrils flare, and her mouth suddenly starts to salivate, heavily.

"Because when I think of you, my mind only ever calls you ' _mate_.' Not Rey, not she, not even Omega." His words send a shock of full-blown pleasure through every one of her nerves. "We're each other's mates, Rey."

She closes her eyes and pictures reaching for his gland again, sees her hands drifting over taut, warm skin that sheathes the powerful muscles of his shoulders. She would sink her fingernails into that small patch of tender pink flesh. She would mark his Alpha gland, the same way he would hers, which so few Omegas are allowed to do. He would let her. He would want it.

This negotiation is over. Any fight that remained within her is...over. She's staying, he knows it, and soon, they'll belong to one other.

"Then it's settled." She says lowly, and he scrapes his chair back, rises from his end of the table, and walks towards her. She squirms again as he gets closer. He tries to seem casual, but he can't help how he practically seems to hunt her down. When he's within a foot of her, she swears she just barely hears him groan.

"It's settled." He repeats.

Rey can see how hard he's fighting not to touch her. 

But she set a boundary, clearly and fiercely. He's done nothing but respect it. At times, he's given her even more distance than she asked.

Biology, and destiny, and circumstance all dictate that he's the right choice. He's right there, smelling like safety and protection, and lust, and everything she's ever wanted.

And yet after a lifetime of independence, it's so hard for her to admit that it _is_ what she wants.

His hand hangs by his side, and his fingertips skim the table. Rey reaches out slowly, and he watches. She realizes they're both holding their breath. Her thumb brushes against his, and he exhales in a rush, eyes falling half shut. 

He wrenches himself away from her and stalks out. 

Then it's just Rey, with the mediocre mural and her racing thoughts. 

These last lingering days of human existence will end; probably within the century. Rey will die soon, along with everyone else. But for every remaining day she manages to stay alive, Kylo will be there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the mess hall was formerly an Olive Garden. Hey, it's post-apocalypse. When you're here, you're family!


End file.
